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[Please read “Genocide” poem, next blog entry]

The killers kidnap the vulnerable first — usually a small group, especially juveniles. The abductees cry for help and their kin rush to rescue. Then, the boats herd families into the killing fields; nets trap them, thrashing for breath. Auschwitz-esque selection begins. The youngest and most attractive chosen for lifelong enslavement. The strong, picked for their flesh. The ugly, old and weak perhaps released, traumatized back into the wild. The assassins pummel, club, hang and gut the captives.

The sea bleeds in the coves of Taiji, Japan (as highlighted in the Academy Award winning movie “The Cove”) where an estimated 25,000 dolphins and whales (including Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Risso dolphins, Striped dolphins and pilot whales) have been slaughtered in the last decade. Most of the cetaceans are sold to marine parks — trainers from the International Marine Animal Trainer Association and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums stay on-site to immediately indoctrinate the captives. The remainder goes to feed Japanese school children, to supplement sushi trade, or to spoil in freezers.

Halfway around the globe, villages celebrate their annual ocean festival in the Danish Faroe Islands. Families gallivant to the beach to participate in ancient if barbaric rituals. Residents cheer as men corral, gaff and eviscerate pilot whales on the shore. Children participate by slashing the dead, traipsing in entrails, or playing with dead calf fetuses cut from the womb. The celebration causes upwards of 2,500 whale murders annually.